Plenge Lab
Date posted: December 19, 2017 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Drug Discovery Embedded Genomics Human Genetics Precision Medicine

A new genetics initiative was announced today: the creation of FinnGen (press release here). FinnGen’s goal is to generate sequence and GWAS data on up to 500,000 individuals with linked clinical data and consented for recall. There are many applications for such a resource, including drug discovery and development. In this blog, I want to first describe the application of PheWAS for drug discovery and development, and then introduce FinnGen as a new PheWAS resource (see FinnGen slide deck here).

[Disclaimer: I am an employee of Celgene. The views expressed here are my own.]

PheWAS

PheWAS turns GWAS on its head. While GWAS tests millions of genetic variants for association to a single trait, PheWAS does the opposite: tests hundreds (if not thousands) of traits for association with a single genetic variant. This approach is primarily relevant for those genetic variants with an unambiguous functional consequence – for example, a variant associated with disease risk or a variant that completely abrogates gene function. There are useful online resources (see here), as well as several nice recent reviews by Josh Denny and colleagues, which provide additional background on PheWAS (see here, here).

Work that originated from my academic lab represents the first example of PheWAS for drug discovery – in particular, how to use PheWAS to predict on-target adverse drug events (ADEs) and to select indications for clinical trials (see 2015 PLoS One publication here).…

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The primary purpose of this blog is to recruit clinical scientists into our new Translational Medicine department at Merck (job postings at the end). However, I hope that the content goes beyond a marketing trick and provides substance as to why translational medicine is crucial in drug discovery and development. Moreover, I have embedded recent examples of translational medicine in action, so read on!

[Disclaimer: I am a Merck/MSD employee. The opinions I am expressing are my own and do not necessarily represent the position of my employer.]

There is a strong need to recruit clinical scientists into an ecosystem to develop innovative therapies that make a genuine difference in patients. This ecosystem requires those willing to toil away at fundamental biological problems; those committed to converting biological observations into testable therapeutic hypotheses in humans; and those who develop therapies and gain approval from regulatory agencies throughout the world.   The first step is largely done in academic settings, and the other two steps largely done in the biopharmaceutical industry…although I am sure there are many who would disagree with this gross generalization!

The term “Translational Medicine” has been broadly used to describe the second step, thereby bridging the Valley of Death between the first and third steps.…

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I admit upfront that this is a self-serving blog, as it promotes a manuscript for which I was directly involved. But I do think it represents a very nice example of the role of human genetics for drug discovery. The concept, which I have discussed before (including my last blog), is that there is a four-step process for progressing from a human genetic discovery to a new target for a drug screen. A slide deck describing these steps and applying them to the findings from the PLoS One manuscript can be found here, which I hope is valuable for those interested in the topic of genetics and drug discovery.

[Disclaimer: I am a Merck/MSD employee. The opinions I am expressing are my own and do not necessarily represent the position of my employer. However, the PLoS One study was performed while I was still in academics at BWH/Harvard/Broad.]

Before I provide a summary of the study, I would like to highlight a few recent news stories that highlight that the world thinks this type of information is valuable. First, the state of California is investing US $3-million in a precision medicine project that links genetics and medical records to develop new therapies and diagnostics (here, here).…

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There was an eruption in Iceland last week. No, this was not another volcanic eruption. Rather, there was a seismic release of human genetic data that provides a glimpse into the future of drug discovery. The studies were published in Nature Genetics (the issue’s Table of Contents can be found here), with insightful commentary from Carl Zimmer / New York Times (here), Matthew Herper / Forbes (here), and others (here, here).

[Disclaimer: I am a Merck/MSD employee. The opinions I am expressing are my own and do not necessarily represent the position of my employer.]

As I have commented before, human genetics represent a very powerful approach to identify new drug targets (see here, here). I have articulated a 4-step process (see slide #5 from this deck): (1) select a phenotype that is relevant for drug discovery; (2) identify a series of genetic variants (or “alleles”) that is associated with the phenotype; (3) assess the biological function of phenotype-associated alleles; and (4) determine if those same alleles are associated with other phenotypes that may be considered adverse drug events.

There is an important assumption about this model: genes with an “allelic series” will be identified from large-scale genetic studies, and these phenotype-associated alleles will serve as an estimate of function-phenotype dose-response curves.…

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Date posted: June 18, 2013 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Human Genetics

In science, a pendulum swings as new discoveries are made and old hypotheses proven false.  Unfortunately, the arc of this swing is often unrelated to the facts, but more tied to the prevailing views of what is and what should be.  With incomplete information, the pendulum may swing too far in one direction – for example, towards the view that genome-wide association studies (GWAS) will identify the vast majority of genetic risk for complex traits in relatively small cohorts (now defined humbly as tens-of-thousands of case-control samples).  After an initial wave of discoveries – or lack thereof – the pendulum swung too far in the other direction: disease-associated variants from GWAS cannot explain most of the estimated heritability in complex traits, therefore rare variants of large effect must be the root genetic cause of complex traits.

Too often, science creates an artificial mirror image of data interpretation.  If one hypothesis is not true, then the opposite must be true.  If it is not common variants, then it must be rare variants; if it is not genetics, then it must be epigenetics; if it is not the host, then it must be the microbiome; and so forth.   Too often, incomplete data to support one model results in a knee-jerk reaction towards an orthogonal model, even if there is little evidence to support the model. …

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